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Exhibition

Wendy Ramshaw’s Room of Dreams

This event is over

Open daily 10.00am – 5.00pm except Fridays 10.30am – 5.00pm

This event is free

Wendy Ramshaw (born 1939) is one of Britain’s most accomplished artist jewellers, and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is delighted to unveil what is widely regarded to be her masterwork, the Room of Dreams. This installation is made up of many parts, from small jewels in frames to large freestanding furniture.

As Wendy Ramshaw has said: “The dream is the room and every one of its individual contents is in some sense a part of a dream. A white wall is covered with frames, each of which contains a piece of jewellery, each inspired by a dream or dream-like situation…a series of stories and images waiting to be considered and discovered…. Room of Dreams has brought into existence so many imagined objects, gathering together so many thoughts in one place, ‘the room’. It has fulfilled and completed a dream for me.”

The jewellery is transformed from precious objects into vehicles for storytelling and imagination. Stories touched upon include Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Snow Queen, Rumpelstiltskin, Bluebeard, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the legend of the ballerina Marie Taglioni who danced to save her jewels from a highwayman.

The Room of Dreams is on long-term loan from a private collection to Birmingham Museums.